Hawthornden Prize

The Hawthornden Prize is a British literary award. It was established in 1919 by Alice Warrender, a contemporary patron of the letters, and named after William Drummond of Hawthornden. Along with the James Tait Black Award, which was established the same year, the Hawthornden is one of the UK's oldest literary prizes. It has been given annually since 1919, with a few gaps.

There is no set category of literature: the specification is for the "best work of imaginative literature". There is no implied restriction to fiction and poetry. Those, with drama, but also biography, travel writing and other types of non-fiction, have been recognised over the years. The current value of the prize is £10,000; young writers are especially encouraged.

The awards made in the early 1920s were criticised in some quarters as being motivated by coterie literary politics around J. C. Squire. After the 1925 award to Sean O'Casey, there was a gradual shift in emphasis. The list of past winners has little in the way of evident common factors, other than a preference in general for the middle of the road.

List of Winners

* 1919 - Edward Shanks, "The Queen of China"
* 1920 - John Freeman, "Poems New and Old"
* 1921 - Romer Wilson, "The Death of Society"
* 1922 - Edmund Blunden, "The Shepherd"
* 1923 - David Garnett, "Lady into Fox"
* 1924 - Ralph Hale Mottram, "The Spanish Farm"
* 1925 - Sean O'Casey, "Juno and the Paycock"
* 1926 - Vita Sackville-West, "The Land"
* 1927 - Henry Williamson, "Tarka the Otter"
* 1928 - Siegfried Sassoon, "Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man"
* 1929 - Lord David Cecil, "The Stricken Deer: or The Life of Cowper"
* 1930 - Geoffrey Dennis, "The End of the World"
* 1931 - Kate O'Brien, "Without My Cloak"
* 1932 - Charles Morgan, "The Fountain"
* 1933 - Vita Sackville-West, "Collected Poems"
* 1934 - James Hilton, "Lost Horizon"
* 1935 - Robert Graves, "I, Claudius"
* 1936 - Evelyn Waugh, "Saint Edmund Campion: Priest and Martyr"
* 1937 - Ruth Pitter, "A Trophy of Arms"
* 1938 - David Jones, "In Parenthesis"
* 1939 - Christopher Hassall, "Penthesperon"
* 1940 - James Pope-Hennessy, "London Fabric"
* 1941 - Graham Greene, "The Power and the Glory"
* 1942 - John Llewllyn Rhys, "England is My Village"
* 1943 - Sidney Keyes, "The Cruel Solstice" and "The Iron Laurel"
* 1944 - Martyn Skinner, "Letters to Malaya"
* 1945-1957 - No award
* 1958 - Dom Moraes, "A Beginning"
* 1959 - No award
* 1960 - Alan Sillitoe, "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner"
* 1961 - Ted Hughes, "Lupercal"
* 1962 - Robert Shaw, "The Sun Doctor"
* 1963 - Alistair Horne, "The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916"
* 1964 - V. S. Naipaul, "Mr. Stone and the Knights Companion"
* 1965 - William Trevor, "The Old Boys"
* 1966 - No award
* 1967 - Michael Frayn, "The Russian Interpreter"
* 1968 - Michael Levey, "Early Renaissance"
* 1969 - Geoffrey Hill, "King Log"
* 1970 - Piers Paul Read, "Monk Dawson"
* 1971-73 - No award
* 1974 - Oliver Sacks, "Awakenings"
* 1975 - David Lodge, "Changing Places"
* 1976 - Robert Nye, "Falstaff"
* 1977 - Bruce Chatwin, "In Patagonia"
* 1978 - David Cook, "Walter"
* 1979 - P. S. Rushforth, "Kindergarten"
* 1980 - Christopher Reid, "Arcadia"
* 1981 - Douglas Dunn, "St. Kilda's Parliament"
* 1982 - Timothy Mo, "Sour Sweet"
* 1983 - Jonathan Keates, "Allegro Postillions"
* 1984-87 - No award
* 1988 - Colin Thubron, "Behind the Wall: A Journey through China
* 1989 - Alan Bennett, "Talking Heads"
* 1990 - Kit Wright, "Short Afternoons"
* 1991 - Claire Tomalin, "The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens"
* 1992 - Ferdinand Mount, "Of Love and Asthma"
* 1993 - Andrew Barrow, "The Tap Dancer"
* 1994 - Tim Pears, "In the Place of Fallen Leaves"
* 1995 - James Michie, "The Collected Poems"
* 1996 - Hilary Mantel, "An Experiment in Love"
* 1997 - John Lanchester, "The Debt to Pleasure"
* 1998 - Charles Nicholl, "Somebody Else: Arthur Rimbaud in Africa, 1880-91"
* 1999 - Antony Beevor, "Stalingrad"
* 2000 - Michael Longley, "The Weather in Japan"
* 2001 - Helen Simpson, "Hey Yeah Right Get a Life"
* 2002 - Eamon Duffy, "The Voices of Morebath: Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village"
* 2003 - William Fiennes, author, "The Snow Geese"
* 2004 - Jonathan Bate, "John Clare: A Biography"
* 2005 - Justin Cartwright, "The Promise of Happiness"
* 2006 - Alexander Masters, ""
* 2007 - M. J. Hyland "Carry Me Down"
* 2008 - Nicola Barker, "Darkmans"

ee also

* List of British literary awards
* List of literary awards
* English literature
* List of years in literature